The project in Nam Giang District which has been implemented since 2016 aiming at increasing the income of ethnic minorities and revitalizing the region by utilizing local resources, completed in August 2020. Only a few FIDR staff members were involved in this project. However, about 4,900 households joined this project and more than 230 products were newly developed. What are the tips to bring about significant impact under limited human resources? What happened in the project site? We will look back on our project to answer these questions in three consecutive series.

The keyword is “Change local resources into treasures for customers”

FIDR implemented the project based on the following two principles.
① Allow everyone to participate in the project activities
② Establish the system to find a suitable market for each product

In this project, the "treasure hunting" method was adapted to find local resources that can be utilized as local specialties. During the project period, not only “Cotu ethnic tour” and “Cotu traditional handicraft” which had been developed as products in the previous project, various local “treasures” such as beans, rice, spices, baskets, etc have become commercialized.
Anyone can participate in the process of product development from the discovery of potential resource to its commercialization. People in the project site are very creative, therefore, by utilizing their creativities, they can add value to the "treasures" and change their treasures into commercial products. At the end of the project period, 4,900 households which are more than 90% of households in the project site, have been involved in the project activities and had the commercialized products.

In the process of commercialization, products are classified into five groups based on the development level. The potential markets are also classified into five categories from local market to international market, so that people can focus their products with the suitable market. During the project period, the residents have repeated the process of product development as in figure below. In this process, they have been improving their products and also developing new products based on the feedback from the customers and retailers.

By adopting this market-oriented approach – “Change local resources into treasures for customers”, the products made from local resources have been highly appreciated by the costumers and they have gained regular customers as “fan community”.

Products are thoroughly inspected before selling in the market.

Agriculture products are processed by villagers.